Chronicle • Ken StevensMuskegon-area World War II veterans Carl Stenberg, 88, Russell Buys, 84, Donald Stout, 84, and Stanley Jastrzembski, 84, from left, are the subject of a new book titled, "The Ghost Mountain Boys." They gathered recently for their annual reunion at Russ' Restaurant on M-120.

They were just kids 67 years ago, joining the Army with no clue what lay ahead.

Everyone had his own reason.

Stanley Jastrzembski of Muskegon was just 16 when he joined the National Guard to support his family. Carl Stenberg, also of Muskegon, signed up to escape the draft.

"They had a swimming pool at the armory," recalled Grand Rapids resident Carl Smestad, 85, of his decision to sign up for the National Guard in 1940 at age 18.

Within a year, Jastrzembski, Stenberg and the others were all but swimming in mud and mosquitoes as they slogged through New Guinea in one of the toughest -- and most overlooked -- campaigns in World War II.

The ordeal is memorialized in "The Ghost Mountain Boys," an account of the Army's 32nd Division as it battled malaria and the Japanese in an exhausting march across the South Pacific island.

"I'm glad somebody has written this book," Fruitport's Stenberg said last week. "We were overconfident and undertrained," quickly adding, "and underfed. Nobody had any idea what a jungle was like ...

"It was one of the worst places I've ever been in."

For the complete story, return to mlive.com/chronicle on Sunday, or pick up a copy of The Sunday Chronicle.